In a choke

11/11/2019 – In a pure endgame a rook is usually much better than a bishop but winning often still requires good technique.

GCT: Aronian snags Superbet Rapid & Blitz

11/11/2019 – Levon Aronian only finished in 5th place with 10 points from 18 games in this weekend's blitz tournament, but when combined with his 10 points in the rapid, his total tally tied him for first place with Sergey Karjakin, who won the blitz portion jointly with Le Quang Liem scoring 11/18. In the resulting playoff, Aronian scored a full point in the second game to snare the overall victory in the Romanian capital, Bucharest. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

Grand Chess Tour: Superbet Rapid & Blitz to Aronian

11/10/2019 – Levon Aronian and Sergey Karjakin surged in the final day of blitz to finish joint first in the overall standings in Bucharest. Aronian won a two-game rapid playoff to be declared the winner of the Superbet Rapid & Blitz. Live games and commentary from 13:00 UTC (14:00 CET, 8:00 AM EST). | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

Hamburg GP: Grischuk and Vachier-Lagrave to meet in semis

11/10/2019 – Only one match-up will be decided in tiebreaks at the second round of the FIDE Grand Prix in Hamburg, as Russians Peter Svidler and Daniil Dubov drew for a second day in a row and will be playing rapid and blitz on Sunday. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexander Grischuk and Jan-Krzysztof Duda secured their spots in the semi-finals in the classical phase, thus getting one extra point at the overall GP standings. | Photo: Nadja Wittmann

Korobov leads Superbet Rapid and Blitz in Bucharest

11/9/2019 – With an Elo rating of 2670, the Ukrainian GM Anton Korobov is currently number 68 in the classical world rankings. However, he is ranked sixth in the world in rapid chess at 2798! Korobov demonstrated his mastery of this format in the rapid portion of the Superbet tournament of the Grand Chess Tour in Bucharest. He finished Day 3 with a two point lead over the field. | Photos: Grand Chess Tour / Lennart Ootes

In focus: Chess in Germany

11/9/2019 – Today, November 9th, 2019, Germany marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, a major geopolitical event in 1989 which set the stage for German reunification. Germany is one of the most important chess countries, cultivating chess culture for about 1000 years. With over 2300 clubs almost 100,000 chess aficionados are actively engaged. The country has 100 grandmasters and some of the most important chess tournaments. Walter Rädler has produced a nice video vignette.

Hamburg GP: Vachier-Lagrave strikes first, again

11/9/2019 – The quarter-finals of the Hamburg Grand Prix kicked off at the Theater Kehrwieder on Friday. The only winner of the day was Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who beat Veselin Topalov with the black pieces and only needs a draw in the rematch game to advance once again without needing tiebreaks. Jan-Krzysztof Duda, David Navara and Peter Svidler drew with Black against Yu Yangyi, Alexander Grischuk and Daniil Dubov respectively. | Photo: Nadja Wittmann

Sarana, Bellahcene triumph in Cap d’Agde

11/8/2019 – Russian Grandmaster Alexey Sarana (pictured) won the Karpov Trophy while Algerian GM Bilel Bellahcene emerged victorious in the classical Grand Prix tournament at Cap d’Agde in southern France. Eight Grandmasters participated in Karpov Trophy, a 14-round rapid tournament. The top four finishers qualified for the knockout stage. In the semifinals, Sarana got the better of Indian GM Nihal Sarin while Bassem Amin defeated French GM Etienne Bacrot. In the final, Sarana won both the rapid games against Amin to win the title. | Photo: Pierre Textoris

The Power Play Show: FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss

11/8/2019 – Power Play plays on! On the show today: GM Daniel King takes you through games from the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss. Power Play is live most Fridays at 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST, Noon EDT) on playchess.com. You can watch the episode live for free! All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

Asking for it

11/8/2019 – In the diagram position White had just played 12.Rac1 which didn't really threaten anything ... until Black replied 12...f6?? How would you take advantage of the new situation?

Hamburg GP: Dubov, Grischuk, Navara and Yu Yangyi go through

11/8/2019 – A pair of rapid games were enough to decide three out of four tiebreaker match-ups at the third leg of the Grand Prix in Hambrug. Daniil Dubov eliminated Teimour Radjabov only when the blitz phase was reached, while David Navara, Alexander Grischuk and Yu Yangyi dispatched their opponents after playing two 25-minute games. Nikita Vitiugov, Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Dmitry Jakovenko were knocked out of the competition. | Photo: Valeria Gordienko

GCT Superbet Day 1: Anish Giri takes the early lead

11/7/2019 – Anish Giri started well among ten world-class players, at the Superbet Rapid Tournament of the Grand Chess Tour in Bucharest: He is in the lead after the first three rapid games with 2½ out of 3, half a point behind them are Vishy Anand, Anton Korobov and Levon Aronian on positions two to four. | Photos: Lennart Ootes, Grand Chess Tour

Hamburg GP: All draws, four matches go to tiebreaks

11/7/2019 – All eight rematch games of round one finished drawn at the Grand Prix in Hamburg. Thus, opening day winners Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Veselin Topalov and Peter Svidler secured a spot at the quarter-finals. Hikaru Nakamura, who was eliminated by Topalov, finished his Grand Prix run this year, as this was his third and last appearance in the series. Four match-ups will be decided in rapid, blitz and potentially Armageddon tiebreakers. | Photo: Nadja Wittmann

Are chess super-talents generally smarter than regular kids?

11/6/2019 – Are strong chess players generally better at logical thinking than people who rarely play the game? Can super-talented youngsters, of GM strength, solve logical puzzles better than amateurs or non-chess kids of the same age? Or are both equally good, or are the chess kids perhaps worse? ChessBase chief editor emeritus Frederic Friedel is conducting an experiment to find out. Today he tells us how his experiments so far have been conducted. Perhaps you can join in and supply your own results. Or at least have fun with his problems!

Game of the Week: Dubov vs Svane

11/6/2019 – The European Team Championship is a fantastic source of fascinating battles and theoretical developments. Today IM Merijn van Delft highlights the game between GMs Banikas and Meier. The show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). Merijn is on-demand this week starting at 19:00 UTC (20:00 CET / 3 PM EDT).

Endgame Magic with Karsten Mueller and Padmini Rout

11/6/2019 – Today Karsten welcomes Indian IM Padmini Rout. Live at 13:00 UTC (14:00 CET, 8:00 AM EST) and on-demand for ChessBase account holders. Don't have an account yet? You can register a free 90-day account to watch!

Hamburg GP: Vachier-Lagrave's dream start

11/6/2019 – Four players kicked off the third leg of the FIDE Grand Prix Series with a win at the Theater Kehrwieder in Hamburg. The results of the day particularly favoured Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, as he beat Wei Yi with the white pieces, while Ian Nepomniachtchi — another big contender to get one of the two Candidates spots at stake — lost against Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Peter Svidler and Veselin Topalov also won their inaugural encounters. | Photo: Nadja Wittmann

The Weekly Show: An English Weekender

11/5/2019 – This week IM Lawrence Trent examines a fine win from Grandmaster Danny Gormally. | Puzzle time: In the diagram below, it's Black to move! | Lawrence is live for free and on-demand for a limited time, or forever on-demand with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.

University Chess Invitational comes to Nankai China

11/5/2019 – Twelve universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Moscow State University, have confirmed their participation for the 2019 World Prestigious University Chess Invitational Championship held by Nankai University of China from November 25th to 30th 2019. Watch out for reports by WGM Qiyu Zhou.

Hamburg Grand Prix: Opening press conference

11/5/2019 – German chess fans (especially those in Hamburg) can look forward to a nice chess event in the countries second largest city. Today, the opening press conference took place at the Kehrwieder Theater in the "Speicherstadt" district, the venue of the Hamburg Grand Prix tournament which runs from November 5th to November 17th. | Photos: Nadja Wittmann

A luckless pawn

11/5/2019 – Usually, having material is good. However, sometimes one's own pieces are in the way or prevent stalemate ideas. In the diagram belowm how can Black save the draw?

Proposal: A new World Championship format

11/4/2019 – When Paul Morphy played Adolf Anderssen in 1858, only two games of the eleven in total were drawn. Steinitz vs Lasker in 1894 produced four draws in 19 games, but when Capablanca played Lasker in 1921 there were already ten draws in 14 games. In the Carlsen-Caruana match last year all twelve regular games were drawn, so the title had to be decided in tiebreaks. But such tiebreaks involve rapid chess game, blitz and even the ominous Armageddon. Is there a way to decide the World Championship in classical games only? Problemist Werner Keym has proposed a format that does exactly this. What do you think?

Simon Says: Latest Developments in the London System

11/4/2019 – The latest FritzTrainer in our ever-growing library is from GM Simon Williams who returns to update his best-selling presentation of the London System. Watch live for free (or on-demand for a limited time) starting at the usual hour: 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET / 12 Noon EST).

Speelman's Agony: And the winner is...

11/3/2019 – We announce the winner of the autographed Fritz DVD, and Jon throws in two professional games feature Gawain Jones and David Howell to illustrate endgame concepts. | Send in your own games! Jon welcomes submissions from readers. If your games are selected for the Agony column, not only will you get free detailed commentary of your games by one of chess’s great authors and instructors, and former world no. 4 player, but you also win a free three-month ChessBase Premium Account!